


A Perfect Storm

by astral_plant



Series: A Series of Hypothetical Events [1]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Study, Family, Friendship, Gen, pre & post s1 speculation, prequel to a sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-06
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-05 13:09:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17325605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astral_plant/pseuds/astral_plant
Summary: I’ll protect you, Claudia thinks, paper in hand as she zips up the tower steps, two at a time. Like my dad protects your dad. I’ll protect you and Prince Ezran, and everyone in the castle from the monsters, like the people on the mountain.Claudia is eight when she decides to be a mage, sixteen when she tries to take a life.





	A Perfect Storm

Claudia is eight when she decides to be a mage.  

She breathes life into her first spell before she learns how to use the castle stove. It happens on a day just like any other.

The midsummer Katolian sun is hanging forlornly in the sky when she runs into Callum. To be more precise, Claudia is ambling across the castle courtyard, her shadow long and her nose in a tome, when she more or less trips over his legs.

“Callum!” Claudia yells in surprise, catching a glimpse of his long, red scarf as she falls. 

Her cry does little to help. It happens faster than a blink. By the time he rises to help, the book’s already flown out of her hands, and Claudia has already landed, spread-eagled and face-first onto the thick, prickly grass. 

Of course, the first thing Claudia sees when she looks up is Soren doubled over and cackling at the other end of the courtyard. Face red from the exertion, and wooden sword tucked under his elbow, his bout of practice is all but forgotten. If Claudia squints, she swears she sees tears leak from his eyes.

Claudia groans, her forehead hitting the grass once more. Already, she feels her cheeks burning in embarrassment.

“Sorry! Are you hurt?” Callum’s concerned voice wafts in from somewhere to her left. 

Looking up, she sees the helping hand Callum holds out. Claudia opens her mouth to reply, and just winds up spitting out a few blades of grass. 

 

* * *

 

Chasing the fickle shade, they move to a nice, breezy spot beneath a great oak. Together, they sit in companionable silence, each occupied with their own books. 

Claudia sets her book softly down in the grass when she’s finished with the tale. In her head, the plot is still running its course, as wild and vibrant as the adventure will ever be. Beneath her, the sun-warmed grass feels welcoming as any bed. If she closes her eyes now, she’d surely be able to dream. 

Try as she might though, she can't ignore the persistent, scratchy sound of Callum sketching. The last time he had been been so engrossed, it was with drawing a spindly scarecrow of a man he had dubbed Lord Pointyknife. In the end, Claudia’s curiosity wins out, spurring her to roll over to Callum. The maids will complain later of the grass stains on her dress and the dirt on her face. Her father will chide her instead for the scuffed, dirtied book. 

She looks at him, with his messy dark hair and pencil-smudged hands and lets out a little hum.  _The prince who will never be king_ , she had overheard the castle guards once gibe. They spoke it like an insult... She can’t sympathize with how they feel. Fall notwithstanding, she likes Callum. She likes how he doesn’t tease her for reading all the time. She likes how she can be herself around him _._ With other people, she’s always the High Mage’s daughter first, and Claudia second. Sometimes, it feels like Callum’s the only other person who understands how weird that can feel. 

(Plus, he’s the only friend around her age she has that isn’t her brother. And that counts for a lot.)

“Whatcha drawin’, Callum?” Claudia asks, propping her chin up with her chubby hands as she peers at the page.

“A monster,” Callum says quietly, voice stiff and strange. And though he answers her question, he doesn’t tear his eyes away from the smudgy, black mess. 

Claudia hums as she curiously considers the dark, jagged lines filling up the page. It looks like the largest, prickliest hedgehog she has ever seen, though on its head rests a pair of long, spiky horns. 

_Why’s it a monster?_ Claudia thinks, surprised when Callum actually answers. She didn’t mean to say that out loud!

“It breathes fire,” Callum says simply as he scrawls zig-zagging black lines spouting from its mouth. It looks more like lightning, but she doesn't comment on that part. Instead, she worries at her lip. 

“I’ve seen Dad do that,” she says eventually. “Not… from his mouth, but…” she trails off, thinking of the time he lit their fireplace with a spell. ”You think he‘s a monster too?”

The scratching of pencil against paper stops. Callum looks at her, blinks, then turns back to the drawing, flipping to a new page before he begins sketching the figure of a person.

“Mm… Naww. That’s his job,” Callum says, and a fireball forms on the page, shooting out from the figure’s extended hand, flying off towards some unknown enemy. “He’s our High Mage. He does it to protect us. Remember the stories? Monsters aren't people,” Callum adds as he flips back to the previous page. “They’re super scary. They… have horns. And drink our blood, and breathe fire! ”

He’s trembling a little bit. She doubts he’s noticed, with his face all scrunched up. Claudia’s not used to him looking so troubled, and so pokes his side to snap him out of it. 

“S-sorry,” he stammers at first, then straightens his stance. He puffs out his chest then, trying to be brave. “Don’t be afraid! Aunt Amaya will protect us. Her and all the people on the mountain. They won't let the monsters get us.”

“That’s great!” Claudia says. She gives him a firm, reassuring smile before she turns back to the sketchy black mass on the paper. The lines are so dark, they bleed through to stain the empty background of his other drawing. Of course she knew about the elves and dragons, but… 

“Are they really that scary?” Claudia asks as she frowns at the drawing.

“Yeah! …Promise not to tell?” Callum makes her pinky swear before he continues. “I dreamt a monster was chasing me. I try to hide, but it finds me and tries to drink my blood, and then…”

“And then?”

“I wake up,” Callum continues. “And I can’t go back to sleep anymore…”

Worry tugs Claudia’s expression down into a frown. Upon closer inspection, Callum’s eyes look tired and bloodshot. She presses her fingers to the page and can feel the forceful indents where the monster’s horns are. It looks less like a hedgehog now and more like an angry mass of shadows. 

It reminds her a little of the exotic artefacts from her dad’s expeditions to Xadia.  _We need magic to conquer magic,_ he had told her once as he held the primal stone up against the glow of the fireplace. She ponders this for a few moments, soot on her fingertips and thoughts buzzing like bees hard at work. 

And then, her eyes light up. 

An idea has taken shape in her mind. 

“I know how to make the monster go away,” Claudia says resolutely as she looks earnestly at him. 

“Really?”

“Yeah! Don’t worry, Callum! Trust me. All I need is your drawing and some magic.” 

The look on his face as he tears out the page—immeasurably grateful and a little in awe—is all the thanks she needs. The moment breaks when Soren trudges over. All knobby elbows and scuffed knees, he drags them by the scruff of their necks to the dining hall for dinner. 

She unsheathes his wooden sword from his belt and shoves it down his pants: revenge for earlier. She savours the disgruntled, high-pitched sound he lets out. It sounds very much like an  _eep_!

After dinner, Claudia puts her plan into action. She’s already memorised the incantation and runes needed for the spell, now all she needs is a source of magic and she’s set.

_I’ll protect you,_ Claudia thinks, paper in hand as she zips up the tower steps, two at a time. _Like my dad protects your dad. I’ll protect you and Prince Ezran, and everyone in the castle from the monsters, like the people on the mountain._

Her dad is still holed up in a council meeting with King Harrow, but only with the primal stone in hand does she pause to catch her breath.  _I have time. I can do it_ , she thinks as she taps the rocks and boulders in an order she knows will open the secret entrance. She takes one good, long look at the monster. It feels like every time she looks at it, it shifts a little bit, like an amorphous cloud in the sky. 

She flips the page around and it’s the mage that Callum drew. He reminds her of her dad, though that may just be the beard. That is to say, she thinks it looks really cool, but she knows that's not a super fair opinion, because she loves her dad a whole lot. She frowns at the piece of paper. To get rid of one, she’ll have to get rid of both. She weighs the pros and cons of action and inaction, and the answer has never felt so clear. 

On her first try, she manages to scorch the page to ash, burn off her eyebrows and singe her dress—all at the same time. It’s how her dad finds out. She’s yowling, running helter-skelter and rolling on the floor to put out the flames when he finds her.

To her great surprise, he isn’t the least bit angry about how she’s trespassed into his private stores and  _borrowed_ his primal stone. Sternly chiding is an apt word to describe his tone. Impressed is one way to describe the way he looks at her.

It takes three months for her eyebrows to grow back and three years for Soren to stop teasing her about it.

Claudia is eight when she utters her first spell. Eight when she decides to become a mage.

 

* * *

 

His daughter is nine when Viren teaches her about the world. 

He tends to her education like a gardener would a young sapling, and like any good gardener, he prunes the clutter and dead leaves whenever he can. 

Claudia knows much for one so young. She knows a lot, but it’s not enough, for upon her young shoulders, he heaps much hope. He means for her to sink her roots deep into the Katolian soil, and so he begins by teaching her their rich history of kingly conquests. He does not want her to shy away from the world, and so he teaches her about the way of the land and the plethora of creatures who inhabit them. There is value in this knowledge. He means for these lessons to be her branches, from which she can draw strength to grow. 

There is value in knowledge, but all his lessons thus far have been taught in preparation for this day. For above all else, Viren is a practical man. And in the same way that no tree will last a heavy storm without a sturdy trunk, all the knowledge in the world mean little without the guidance of wisdom.

And so one day, when the leaves of the great oak tree in the castle courtyard turn all the hues of orange and red, they sit upon discomfiting stone stools for another type of lesson. 

These lessons, he hopes will one day help with the choices he means for her to make. He hopes it will aid in bringing about the future she is to help uphold. All these things that he’s done and he’ll do, he doesn’t always explain to her.  _What use would it do?_ Viren thinks.  _How could one so young see the forest for the trees?_

 

* * *

 

Claudia is nine when her father teaches her about the world. 

War is not a game, and neither is life, but the best way he can think of to teach her is with a chessboard. He explains all this as he carefully lays out each piece, together with their names and how they can move about the board. 

Claudia sits still as best she can to listen, enraptured by it all: kings and queens, castles and knights. All her life, she’s read the stories and now, she gets to play a part in how the tale unfolds. 

She knows enough magic to protect and kill, yet her legs still aren’t long enough for her feet to touch the ground. She swishes them back and forth now—a futile effort to channel her restless enthusiasm. White and black, good and bad. She enters her first bout nursing grandiose plans of heroic conquest.

That’s how it starts, with the bold, eager moves of a new commander. That’s how it starts before the fear sets in, for she’s facing off against her father—a seasoned mage who has spent a great deal of his tenure either in war rooms or on actual battlefields. 

With each careless move, the casualties only pile up. It gets to a point where indecisiveness becomes her. 

“Come now, Claudia,” says her father sternly as he meets her gaze from across the round stone table. There’s a stiffness in his expression she thinks might be annoyance. “In life, we don’t always have the luxury of time.”

Her frown eases up as she schools her features into a mask of calm. She holds up a white knight and rolls it around in her palms before setting it back down in its original place. 

She reaches instead for the queen.

“A daring choice,“ he says as he pinches his chin between finger and thumb, idly stroking his beard. “She can move in any direction. Defeat anything in her path."

“Like Queen Sarai!” Claudia chimes in with an earnest smile.

“Yes,” Viren replies, his thick eyebrows shooting up to his hairline in surprise. He has to clear his throat before replying. “I suppose you are correct.”

The game continues like this, with Claudia emboldened by the levelled playing field. She sweeps aside a pawn with ease, then a bishop. It goes on and on, round after round, until he turns the tables by cornering and capturing her queen with his bishop. 

“The queen is formidable, yes. But not invincible,” he says cooly. “With the right strategy, she too can be vanquished, just like any other piece on the board.”

Claudia wears the mother of all downcast expressions when her favorite piece is removed from the board. “I don’t wanna play anymore, dad,” Claudia says glumly as she looks upon her sparse retinue of soldiers. “I can’t win.”

“Giving up already? We all have favoured champions, dear girl, but you shouldn’t let sentimentality be your undoing,” responds her father. “Surrender and you stand to lose everything. Last long enough, and you can crown a new Queen.”

At his urgings, she continues, though it’s clear her heart isn’t in it. He chips away at her pallid army, picking them off, one by one, until at last, he has her King cornered. She can hear the sigh he lets out as he folds his hands in front of the table after he has won. 

“Do you know why I wanted you to go through that?” 

He waits for her to give a shake of her head before he continues. “Because there are lessons to be had, even in losing. We live in a precarious time, Claudia. There are enemies at our door. If we falter, if we hesitate, we stand to lose it all. Do you understand?” 

She meets his cold, stormy eyes and gives a slight nod. He clears his throat then: his signal that she’s in for a long, serious talk. Claudia is fiddling with her hands in her lap, mentally bracing for it, when she’s unexpectedly saved by a booming voice from across the courtyard.

“Let her enjoy the morning sun and play a little, Viren,” booms the deep, rich voice of their kind King from a ways off. “She’s too young to be training morning, noon and night.“

“I… of course,” her father calls out. She didn’t think it was possible, but he straightens up a little more in his seat. “Perhaps I have been too hard on you. You’re a child still... Come, help me put the pieces away and we’ll be done for today.”

“Promise?” Claudia asks, eyes wide as she holds out her pinky finger.

She’s never seen him make that expression before! He looks taken aback by the sight. With the way his eyes bug out, you’d think he’d seen a bumble-scorp perching on her head. 

“I promise,” he answers taciturnly as he hooks his finger around hers. He doesn’t smile, but he’s not frowning. She takes it to mean that he’s in a good mood, and so grins toothily at him, entirely convinced by his answer.

“The two of you are similar in some regards. Our good King is no fan of chess either,” her father’s solemn voice carries over the sound of them stowing the pieces. “Little wonder. It’s a very calculated game. Pawns and Queens… If he had his way, he’d rather no one die for his sake. Unfortunately, wars are not won upon acts of selfless valor.” 

His voice only registers vaguely in her periphery. She’s too impressed by the workmanship of the ornate, polished pieces to pay particularly close attention to anything else. Claudia turns the ivory king over and over in her small hands. She wonders what the pieces are made of, and where they’re from. She’s read the stories, seen the drawings.  _Why would two human kingdoms want to go to war? Where are the elves and dragons?_ she wonders vaguely as she looks disappointingly at the bishop. 

"Claudia.” 

Her attention snaps into focus at the sound of her name. She sits up a little straighter in her seat, begins to listen again with intent.

“You must steel your heart for what is to come,” he says somberly. “Like the pieces in chess, we are pawns in the grand scheme of things. If our lives are to mean anything, it must count towards serving a greater purpose. You need to understand, Claudia. There may come a time where I too must lay down my life in service of Katolis.”

At his words, bitterness rises up from within her like bile. Claudia bites her lip to stop the poison from spilling out. She turns instead to stare down at the still-scattered chess pieces with acute disdain.

She doesn’t understand. She’s peeked in on their war room meetings before. Sure, there had been wooden carvings of bannermen and knights, but that, like chess, was surely just a game, wasn’t it? She’d read the stories. Life was so much more than that, surely. So much more than the figures and facts in the history books. She doesn’t understand. A part of her doesn’t want to.

“Why?” Claudia asks, balling her hands into fists at her side. “Aren't you a powerful mage? The most powerful mage in all of Katolis?”

“There may come a time where even that may not be enough. Will you forgive your father if it comes to that?”

“…Is that what happened to mom?”

He breaks from her anguished, green-eyed stare to look down at his weathered hands, at the slim band of silver. “The world is made of hard truths, Claudia. When you’re older... When you’re ready… I’ll tell you what happened to your mother.”

They stow the rest of the pieces in stilted silence, and he never does tell her what became of her mother. 

After today, Claudia comes to play many games of chess, though she harbours no love for the game. 

_It’s a test,_ she comes to think. _A test. If I pass, if I make the right moves, maybe this time_ ,  _I’ll be ready. Maybe this time, he’ll tell me the truth._

She wins a handful of games and suffers defeat at his hands so many times, she loses count entirely. Each game of chess unfolds a different way. Each loss is another lesson learnt, of which she learns many—but none like on this day.

The world is made of hard truths, some of which she isn’t ready to face. That’s what Claudia learns when she’s nine.

 

* * *

 

Claudia is sixteen when she tries to take a life. 

Gravel flies up from the ground where the horses stomp their hooves. They’re going fast. Faster and faster up the winding mountain trail. 

“We have the elf cornered,” Soren says, grinning triumphantly as he spurs his white horse into a gallop. 

“Yup! That vile assassin won't know what hit her,” Claudia responds as she brings up the rear on her own steed. “We’ll swoop in, rescue the princes and save the day!” 

There’s also the matter of the egg, but,  _well_ … Soren doesn’t need to know about that quite yet. 

They slow their horses to a trot when the trail begins to thin out. It won’t be long now, Claudia thinks, before that kidnapping elf receives her comeuppance for all the Katolian blood shed the night their king was slain. 

She hadn’t expected Callum and Ezran to side with the elf back then. She didn’t understand why they would run from her either. She wasn’t the monster out for their blood. She wasn’t. Though the thoughts are bitter on her tongue, she finds it hard to blame them. They were children who didn’t know any better. They had been frightened, afraid and confused. If only she had more time, she could have properly explained the situation… 

What use was it to dwell on the past? She chastises herself. She had a chance now to set things right. This is no time to falter. She can’t afford any weakness in the heat of battle. 

They dismount from their horses when they catch the distant sound of voices, for fear of spooking their quarry. Edging closer, they finally catch sight of the party gathered around a campfire for warmth. That’s when Soren holds out a hand, signalling her to stop inching forward. They share a look and their next course of action is understood. 

They had already discussed battle plans en route, and come to an agreement: if they retained the element of surprise, an ambush was preferable to storming the scene. The decisive blow would fall to Claudia. 

It would be her very first kill.

They will strike under cover of darkness. For now, Claudia waits and watches, and still she does not understand. The princes aren't in chains. Instead, they’re making idle conversation as they pop berries into their mouths, sheltered as they are under the rocky outcrop. Callum says something and Ezran laughs. From Claudia’s vantage, she can't spot the elf’s expression, only how she flicks a berry at Callum’s head, and how Bait waddles over to gobble up the wayward berry. 

(She spots something more, she thinks: large, liquid eyes peering out from a rucksack, but... She blinks and it’s gone. Surely, that must’ve just been her imagination.)

The mood around the campfire is oddly light. It feels…  _wrong_ , for lack of a better word, but Claudia lacks the words to voice her feelings. It doesn’t matter, she tries to reassure herself. It won’t be long now. 

In the sky above, the sun sinks into the horizon like the golden eye of a great beast falling shut to dream. It casts the earth in red and orange hues, makes her feel a little dizzy for reasons other than the altitude. 

Her heart pounds in her ears. With each passing moment, it only gets louder. 

She doesn’t notice she’s trembling until Soren lays a hand on her shoulder. There’s a hard-edge to his blue eyes when they lock gazes. In them, she sees the shadow of their father.  _Steel yourself, Claudia,_ the words echo in her mind. 

She draws a sobering breath to compose herself. There was no such thing as half-measures. The stakes were too high for that. 

A _quick and painless death_ , she thinks as she uncorks a vial holding a glowing, blue insect. There’s no room for the skittish creature to escape. Her fingers cage it in her grasp, fingernails digging into flesh so hard they press red, half-moon indents on her skin. 

The setting sun forms a perfect line bisecting earth and sky. With bated breath, she counts the seconds ticking by. When all trace of light fades from the horizon, when she has a perfect, unobstructed view of the elf’s back, she crushes the insect in her hand and says her incantation.

A crystalline, icy shard takes form in the air, its razor tip like a spearhead. 

_A quick, painless death,_ she thinks again.  _Straight through the heart._ She will grant the elf a mercy not shared by the soldiers slaughtered defending their king. With a flick of her wrist, Claudia sends it whizzing through the air like an arrow. 

The elf’s ears twitch ever so slightly, and that's all the clue Claudia needs to understand that she’s failed. It’s like the girl has a sixth sense. Pirouetting on the spot, the elven assassin slices the icy spear from out the air with her curved swords. Her moves are lithe and purposeful. It plays out almost like a frenetic dance. 

Claudia had never expected to fight someone like her. She doesn't know what to make of the way the elf so readily jumps towards the direction of danger, as if to distance Callum and Ezran from spillover damage. It unbalances Claudia to the point where she freezes for a few seconds, pinned in place as she is by the righteous fire in those lilac eyes.

“We’re under attack! Get back!” She calls out as she glares at Claudia.

Soren yells as he charges at her from their hiding spot. There’s the jarring clang of metal against metal when they cross swords.

“What’s happening?” Callum’s voice rings out as he rises to his feet. “Soren? Claudia? No! Stop fighting!”

They pay him no heed.

_She moves like a dancer_ , Claudia thinks again, of the way blow after blow thunders against Soren’s sword and armor, forcing him to step back. She’s a dangerous opponent to face alone. Lucky for her brother, he isn't alone. Claudia uncorks another vial and crushes another spider in her hand. Together with the harnessed power from the nearby campfire, she creates a wall of flame to restrict the elf’s movements.

It doesn’t land a hit, but it’s enough of a distraction for Soren to ram the pommel of his sword into her side. The elf falls to a crouch as she retreats. She spits red onto the earth, then glares hatefully up at him, her ashen hair falling forward to obscure part of her face.  

She looks wild, weak and angry, like a cornered animal with its back to the wall. Even then, Soren grants her no quarter, surging forward to kick her hard in the chest. Again, the elf is thrown back, skidding against the dirt until she’s dangling at the cliff’s edge. The only thing keeping her anchored is the dagger she stabs deep into the earth. In front and behind her, death pins the elf down.

Claudia turns away from the sight.  _It’s raining,_ she thinks in passing.  _How strange_. She doesn't remember seeing a cloud in the sky. The raindrops makes hissing sounds when they meet the wall of flames. They won’t last much longer in this weather. It’s a small matter. There are more pressing concerns at present.

“Get back, Callum! It’s dangerous,” Claudia says as she scurries over, grabbing his wrist to pull him away from the commotion. “We’re here to save the both of you. Where’s the egg?”

“The egg?” Callum’s features scrunch up in pain. He jerks his hand from out of her grasp to stare her down. “All this time, and you’re no different from your father! All you care about is power. We were fine before you showed up! Let us make things right, Claudia! Leave us alone!”

“Callum! Help!” Ezran calls out as he and Bait try in vain to hold Soren back by tugging at his cape.

“Don't hurt her!” Callum yells as he scrambles to rush over.

She doesn't expect his words to hurt so much.  _You’re wrong, Callum,_ she thinks as she looks down at her trembling hands.  _We’re here to protect you. We’re here to save you._

_It’s that elf’s fault,_ she thinks as she clenches her fist.  _She has them under some thrall. I need to do something! I need to protect them._

Overhead, lightning rends the brackish sky, followed by an echo of thunder. 

 

* * *

 

With Callum’s help, Ezran and Bait make more headway with impeding Soren. 

“Get out of the way, I have to end this!” Soren yells out as he turns to shove Ezran onto the ground.

The flash of lightning. The clap of thunder. It repeats in a refrain like a war drum, the beat hitting fever pitch. 

Lightning hits the ground less than ten feet away from Claudia when she nears them. 

“Stop it, she’s our friend!” Callum yells as he bars Soren’s path to the elf with his body. 

“I’m sorry, Callum,” Soren replies, his voice cracking at the edges as he continues his unrelenting advance. “No hard feelings. It’s what dad wants.”

His jaw sets into a grim line, his body tensing before he prepares to deal a crippling blow. Those words. That stance. Claudia sees right through him. He’s not aiming for the downed elf at all! 

There’s no time to breathe or think. Running on instinct, Claudia pushes Callum out of the way before pain spears through her like a lance. 

The sword slides out of her, slick and sticky with blood. Her body suddenly feels much too heavy. Claudia stumbles before she crumples to the floor in a heap. 

The look on her brother’s face can only be described as pure horror. Soren’s blood-drenched sword clatters to the ground where he drops it. He takes a step back and topples onto his back, landing on all fours. 

In the next instant, lightning strikes the spot where he was standing, rupturing the ground beneath their feet. The shockwave sends Claudia careening backwards, and then she’s falling. Falling through the endless night. She looks up and catches a glimpse of a white blur helping Ezran tug Callum back from the cliff’s edge. A dragon?  _A dragon!_

Claudia blinks, and the thought is gone. Her eyelids have never felt so heavy. She feels cold. So cold. She imagines that it must be how a shooting star must feel hurtling through the darkness. Then she hits her head on something hard and feels more like a coin chucked down a well. 

She closes her eyes.

_It’s a lie,_ she thinks, sparks of color blooming behind her eyelids.  _You’re never ready for the truth._

_You’ll never truly know even when you’re staring it down with your heart in your mouth._

All is bright, then all is dark. 

It doesn't hurt after that. 

Claudia feels nothing at all for the longest time.

**Author's Note:**

> Tried exploring some characterisation and backstory. It got darker than intended, but fret not: things lighten up. (I swear!)


End file.
